Sermon – “Body, Soul and Spirit”

23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

18 I said in my heart, “Concerning the condition of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like animals.” 19 For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. 21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?

4 The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

37 And in all we were two hundred and seventy-six persons on the ship.

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy[d] Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”[e] But we have the mind of Christ.

19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Well the title for the title David could you possibly go back to the course of the first phrase. Possibly. The first one right there right there so take my heart part of the body take my mind transform it take my will and conformant that kind of speaks to the three the body the soul in the spirit the heart the mind and the will or we willing to say yes to the ward for my heart transform my mind conform my will are we willing to say that we willing to surrender those to him give him absolute complete control over our body soul and spirit so that’s going to be the question today all right you can move on to the back to where you were let us begin with prayer graces nor We thank you and praise you praise you for your presence we thank you father that you desire relationship with each and every one of us Father that you want us to surrender our bodies our minds our spirit all and to you Father God that we would be faithful to you father I just pray that your spirit would be in control here this morning it you would speak to us Lord the words the understanding that you would have is to have bother anything that is not of you Lord let it be gone let the wind just blow it away yet Father God does touch our hearts today help us to rejoice in your love help us to rejoice in your grace and Father God just fill us fill us to overflowing or God with your precious Holy Spirit in Jesus name and for your glory Amen. All right I hope that title sparks a little bit interest in you you know Asa suspect that there is a lot of people out there that. If you would ask them to describe let me back up just a second last Sabbath as I have the kids this quarter. We got to talking about body soul and spirit trying to explain the difference in those two youngsters was a little bit difficult but that got me thinking. And that’s good that it got me thinking and make me search it out and look for it and you know I hope that I can clear through things up I might not have all the answers here but you know if I were in the adult Sabbath school class if nothing else in the past several years we’ve learned one thing ask the disc difficult questions and know how to answer them we as a church the believers we need to know how to answer the tough questions when someone ask us questions you know just like a few weeks back we use our association and they have the god they’re from back to Genesis and talking about dinosaurs when someone comes up and ask you about Donna Summers don’t just say like well I believe they were God made him and that’s it you know we need to have more than just a lame answer for a lot of questions you know when someone wants to know what’s the difference between a body soul and spirit are going to say well I don’t know what God made it and I just lead by faith and that’s why it is you know that’s a pretty lame answer we should try to have good solid Biblical Lancers for those tough questions of people ask us so if I’ve learned nothing else David I’ve learned that I try to answer the good you know the tough the tough difficult questions you know most people are going to do pretty easy on describing or in an understanding the body part right I mean that’s pretty easy you know we know that the body is the physical thing that we have here that’s what we had then if I want another with we you know each person has their their faith their face and their looks and the body that they move around in and that’s pretty easy we have the five senses right. Was the five senses kids. All right the dollars can help five senses. Sight smell. Hearing. Touch taste and you know what is amazing to watch a kid child because you know when a child is very very young and they’re learning you know their bodies learning all of the things of the world and how does a kid learn a lot of things everything they pick up or does it go they want to taste it to see if it tastes good they’ll even put rocks in there Miles to see if they taste good and I’ll never live that one down for allowing that little in the put a rock in her mouth if I could she just want to taste it to see what it tasted like you know that doesn’t taste good spit it out that’s how the body these kids as they grow they learn I did get in trouble for that so you know. But once in a while that little chatters or grow one they have to feel a pretty strong touch across their backside to know something. Was wrong though that they shouldn’t of did what they did right so they learned through the touch through the taste the same as we do through those senses these bodies learn right amen. I guess I should warn you the beginning I don’t have a big long scripture to be getting this morning we’re just going to have lots of little scriptures as we go kind of different this morning. OK So when describing though the difference between the soul and the spear it becomes a little bit more difficult because the difference that between these have been discussed at length through philosophy through literature through religion some believe them to be the same thing. But worse if we look the found out the truth too was are they the same thing or are they different where do we look we look in the Bible and the Bible has plenty of references to both beginning with the first US ALL. Chapter five verse twenty three. Says Now may the God of peace in self sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and then in Hebrews Chapter four verses twelve and thirteen. For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword piercing even to the division of the soul and spirit and of the joints and Maro which would speak of the body and is a discerner of the thoughts and intense of the heart and there is no creature hidden from his sight but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account verse twelve makes it very clear that human beings are made up of three parts spirit soul and body the original Greek language the conjunction and use as between them spirit and soul and body indicates the three are different from one another so if you think God’s Word is this the ultimate source of authority it distinguishes between the three that they are different so will establish the first of all that they are not the same thing they are separate they are distant the soul is distinct from the spear in spirit from the soul you know. I’ve been working on this in my mind basically all week I haven’t been up the desk all week but when you think about it you think of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit right. And they are three distinct but yet they are in complete unity all the time so the three are separate but yet the three are one so we can apply this also so why is it so hard sometimes to distinguish between the soul and spirit because they are so. Intertwined together it is hard to separate them and tell them apart Amen. Now I said that everybody can probably pretty easily understand the body part but we’re going to look at that a little bit anyway so beginning with Verse chapter two of Genesis verse seven says in the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being the Hebrew word for formed is Yat-Zar it means to fashion out of something that already existed. God for man that the dirt right God for man out of a substance that already existed something that he already created he created that or he made the dirt and I know you know a lot of women are going to say I knew that you came from there. You know we know how to God form the woman. He took a rebel out of out him so man came from there and woman came from Adam now this is not from a biblical source. But I heard that after a few months after God created Adam and Eve and had taken that Ribot of Adam that he came back a few weeks later and says Well Adam he says What do you think of that woman that I took from your rib he says can have a rib back. No. Joke make you laugh this morning and I am a rip back now we can’t he can’t take the rib back. But you know these bodies are composed of the same elements that make up the dust for the ground almost ninety nine percent of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements oxygen carbon hydrogen not nitrogen calcium and phosphorus only point eight five percent composes the other five elements but Tassie I’m SOL for sodium. Chlorine and magnesium and all eleven of these are essential for life and amazing that God formed us from the dust so ultimately women because we came from the dust you did to that’s right we came from the Earth God formed us from the earth Genesis three nineteen says in the sweat of your face you shall we bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken from dust you are and to the dust you shall return you know I was just thinking about this day and I’m thinking we’re going to return to the dust we came from the dust week and we’re going to return to it and you know the the funeral homes and the undertakers they would like to hear this which you know though they preserve these bodies with all kind of chemicals and they put them in these big old vaults and people will spend millions of dollars across this country to put in a nice sealed vault in a nice sealed casket but we’re going to return to the dust anyway so my theory is dig a hole throw be inerrant throw the dirt in on top of me because we’re going to return to the dust anyway now the undertakers are going to like that because they lose a lot of money and everybody thought that way but ya tell Karen just put me in the backyard so matters to me. Haven’t I so I say just put me in a backyard plant me throw bear on top of me because God’s word tells me I’m going to return to the dust anyway. So don’t throw them chemicals in air and try to preserve me make me look good for I want to come Pat mode at hand just throw me in the ground let me return to the dust All right I didn’t mean that to make us laugh but it is our or was a. All right. Something that somebody some of us may not ever considered and that’s the animals animals have a soul also a man they have a soul Also since they have life in them they have a soul ecclesiastics three eighteen through twenty one said. I said in my heart concerning the conditions of the sons of men God tests them that they may see that they themselves are like animals for what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals one thing before all of them as one dies so dies the other Surely they all have one breath they all have one breath God is speaking of man and animals they have one breath man has no advantage over animals for all is vanity all go to one place all are from the US and all returned to the US who knows a spirit of the sons of men which goes upward and the spirit of animal which goes down to the earth the spirit will go upward but the body goes downward animals to have a soul just like man does. So with that will move from the body to the soul most important thing we know is who gave us the soul that we have worded it come from. Came from God back to Genesis two seven again for a second time and this is the King James Version and the Lord God for man we already established form the body so there is that body there that God fashioned in the dirt shaped it the way he wanted it to look and then he breathed it says and he breathed into the nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. The breath of God is where the life comes from and that is how we become a living soul. So there is the body and the soul the soul is the breath of God that is in us without the so. What is the body. It is dead the bet that the body is nothing that just lays there it is nothing without the soul God when He breathed in the atom he made him a living soul the word made in Hebrew is a sop and me. Means a substance required of which the thing made consist of the soul was simply that which gives life to a person’s body the soul has nothing to do with whether you are a born again Christian or not. Every living person out there on the face of the earth walking has a soul if they’re walking if they’re breathing they have a soul he has breath they have a soul if you come upon a tragic accident out there along the highway and say the person was thrown from the car and you rush up and they’re laying there they’re not moving What’s the first thing you’re going to do. Right they’re going to see if they’re breathing see if they have a pulse if they’re not breathing. The souls departed you have to have the soul in order to have life. Commentator and writer all or speaks of this on the soul and spirit he says the Hebrew word for soul is in the in the fish which means a breathing creature be it animal or man the Greek word used in both here Rick the Greek word for Spirit is NUMA and it means breath vital principle or mental disposition. So the breath the life is the soul the spirit can be the mental disposition so we can know you know you you see as a person it’s evil you can’t con a know what kind of spirit is in that person so there’s differences in the spirit. Job thirty three four says the Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life the breath of God is what gives us life that is our souls our souls are kept in energy and strength by the continued existence of the Almighty God within us. Yes you understand that it’s God’s continued existence in you that gives you life even those that do not profess his son even those who do not believe in His Son Jesus Christ it is still his continued existence in them that gives them life that what that is a Soul within each and every individual God’s presence in his in their lives in our lives there are so many references to the Soul of Man and First Peter three twenty which sometimes speaking to the children which sometimes were disobedience when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared with with the where in few that is eight souls were saved by water and in Acts twenty seven thirty seven and this is when pollen Luke was sailing on the ship they were sailing to rooms and says and we were all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls so my friends how many do you see that think on that ship were actually Christians were actually believers while the only ones we know for sure is Paul and Luke. But he says there were two hundred and seventy six souls on board that ship so that means there were two hundred seventy six alive people on that ship all of them had a soul all of them were alive the Soul gives life to the body. One teaching on the soul and spirit is this says The Soul is a light the soul is the blood it is passed from one generation to another so during the time of fertilization the sperm and pregnancy egg in a person can pass life passes soul from on to his prodigy So if a person has no offspring his soul simply goes when he dies there is nothing Him or two about the soul. Let’s move to the spirt first that’s alone eons five twenty three read it again or read it read it once. Now may the God of peace and self sanctify you completely May your whole spirit soul and body be preserved and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and I think the reason people have such a hard time understanding it is because we can’t see them. You can’t see the spirit Kenya God is Spirit right he is the invisible God we’re not the fashion an image of God He is the invisible God the Spirit is invisible invisible blue you can’t see it well how many of you can see the wind. Anybody here see the wind. Now. Can you see the effects of the wind OK Now on your head yes you see that dust swirl up when the wind blows you see the trees out there whipping back and forth when the wind blows you see the waters at the ocean spray and blow in the waves toss and turn because it’s the wind you know it’s the wind doing it. So in the same way though you can’t see the spear you can see the effects of the spirit you can definitely see the effect of the spirit in a person’s life you can see the effects of the spirit in that person and that kindness that they share and that. Loving touch when they wrap their arms around you when you’re hurting you can see the spirit in that person when they do that you can see the spirit in the gentleness we can go into all the gifts of the spirit and speak of them gentleness kindness longsuffering patience goodness and mercy but the greatest is what love that’s where you see the spirit in the love of the person that has the end well in spirit of Almighty God inside them so yes you can see the spirit so yes we should be able to describe the spirit. Because we see it in. Those around us that are filled with the Spirit of God. First Corinthians two ten through sixteen here’s my long scripture but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit for the Spirit searches all things yes the deep things of God for what man knows the things of man except the spirit of man which is in him even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spear who is from God I’m going to pause see there is a spirit of the world and we can also see the effects of that you just open the newspaper or turn the news on a night and you’re going to see the effects of the spirit of the world because who’s controlling the spirit of the world. Saying the devil he’s controlling the spirit of the world so we’re either filled with the spirit of the world or filled the spirit that is from God. That spirit. Now we have received not to spare the world but the spirit of who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God These things we also speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual but the natural man. Those out there in the world that do not know God do not know is Son Jesus Christ the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned but he was spiritual judges all things yet he himself is rightly judged by no one for who can know the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of Christ a man see we can know the mind of law. Lord if we allow God to transform our minds if we allow God to speak if we are filled with the Holy Spirit we can know the mind of Christ through His Spirit that is within us the spirit part of man makes that possible it makes it possible for us to communicate with God It gives us fellowship with God man was formed he was made God created these bodies he give us life when he breathed into us we became a living soul and they gave us His Spirit. That we can communicate and fellowship with Him because He is Spirit we could not fellowship with God Without the spirit we could not communicate with him without the Spirit. One writer claims and I’m not going to say that I agree with this when Adam and Eve not going to agree completely there might be some I don’t completely agree with here but when Adam and he sinned he says they lost their spiritual connection with God They received the Spirit on a condition that they would be obedient to God. They would not disobey him they did disobey we know that so that connection that relationship was broken and we know that it was restored whenever Christ came and died for our sins restoring our relationship with God reconciliation but this person claims that with eight they lost their spears their saying when they were only body and soul. But I disagree on the port because they had the spirit of the world in them they were still body soul and spirit but the spirit of the world because of sin because of Adam we lost that connection but it is restored through Jesus Christ I have a scripture to read and I didn’t send this one. From Psalms fifty one. David says. To the Lord purge me with this up and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow make me hear joy and gladness that the bones broken may rejoice hide your face from my sin and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart oh god. Can that be your prayer Create in me a clean heart of God and read a new steadfast spirit within me the King James version here reads renew a right spirit within May. Church that’s it when we cry out the God and pray for forgiveness with a father renew put that right spirit within May. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take care and do not take your Holy Spirit from me restore to me the joy of your salvation and up hold me by your generous spirit Amen I didn’t find out until later in that wonderful create I’m a father a right spirit create a true heart created a mind that is surrendered to you body soul and spirit I don’t know that that but cleared up anything that might have made it clear as mud I don’t know. But we do know that we have three parts and we do know that in all be it all the thanks belongs to God because the body that we have he formed it he made it he gave us life in a gave us His Spirit that we can talk with him then we can listen to him hear his voice we can hear his will it will just take time to listen and allow him to speak. Allow the spirit in you to connect the Spirit of God. So if nothing else I hope you understand it the Soul is the life the spirit is that connection that we have with God the will of man horse the heart the body is easy but we need to thank him for all three because he is so gracious. And so loving that he wants us he wants us to connect with him he wants us to surrender all three to him Body Soul and Spirit Amen.